Loud
by Deprecatorism
Summary: Being around Trini is deafening. Kimberly's never known anything that feels this loud, it's so loud and yet it won't ever be loud enough.


**Hello all! Hope you're having a good day, wherever you are and whatever day it is. It's been a while (being somewhere in the region of two years) and I've gone through a bunch of ships. Currently obsessed with these two and wrote a little something. Hope you enjoy it. p.s my grammar is still pretty awful.**

* * *

You're certain that you've developed premature hearing loss with the amount of time you spend with the volume turned all the way up on your headphones. You're desperate when you repeatedly hit the volume button on your phone even though you knows it's already at its loudest – and it is, it's _so_ loud but it just isn't loud enough. It's become almost instinctive for you to reach for the pink headphones (which you now keep at arms length) every time you hear Trini stumble through the door. It's a good instinct to have as of recent, since you can't remember the last time Trini came home unaccompanied. You're not sure if there's much romance involved really, every encounter seems to be the same. It starts with you hearing a key turn in the front door lock and drunken footsteps making their way past your door towards Trini's. You've come to notice that never seems to be a pause for a drink, or a few minutes spent on the couch talking. Instead, there's always a frantic rush to reach Trini's room at the end of the hall, and it's at that moment when you hear the other girl's door slam closed, you knows it's time to find a distraction.

Despite your best efforts, despite the attempts to binge watch a feel good comedy or the recent list of heavy metal tracks that have made it onto your playlist, there are always snippets that you end up hearing from the room next door. Some days it's muffled giggles that obviously aren't coming from Trini. You wonder how alien that would sound, because when it comes to your roommate's laughter it's either a scoff accompanied by an eye roll or a laugh that's so genuine, so pure and comes from so deep within that her eyes shine so bright that you're momentarily dazzled and _everything_ feels loud.

Even through the walls, even through the headphones that you swear you've taken off for the sake of your ear sensitivity, you can hear Trini's efforts to hush her lover out of courtesy – and yet everything is still so loud. You can deal with giggles, ignore them almost. But its nights like today when you can hear strings of expletives in between guttural moans when you aren't sure you can take it. They're so unbearably loud. The worst part is that you've always been something of a visual individual, and so you can't help that you can almost picture the scene next door. You feel guilty after you've imagined it too, but it's hard to feel remorse when Trini is writhing underneath a faceless girl in your mind, pleading for more. More of something, anything – just, _please_ is what she imagines Trini would breathe. There's skin touching skin and lips touching skin and racing heartbeats and every piece of contact is so loud that you're afraid you've gone deaf when the quiet comes. The quiet that comes afterwards, when you figure out that the heartbeat is yours and you realise the face of the faceless girl is your own.

It isn't like you take issue with your roommate's revolving door of bedroom buddies – you're glad that Trini's embracing everything she once felt burdened by – you just wished she didn't have to be so _loud_ about it.

You remember all too well the Trini that walked the corridors of Grange Rove high school, a well of sarcasm and a grudge against the world. It makes you smile to realise that neither of those aspects have changed. Trini still calls you out every time they're at the coffee shop down the street and you order pink lemonade in the middle of Winter – with extra ice. She'll accuse you of being pretentious and say that there should be a law against having a hipster phase past the age of eighteen. Trini's only able to poke fun at you for so long though, because Zack will take a sip of his flat white and remind her that she ordered the same drink just last month when you were away with your parents. The tips of Trini's ears will flush at that reminder – until they're your favourite shade of pink, and Trini will grumble something about wanting to see what all the fuss was about before launching a few thinly veiled insults at the boy. You and Zack will form an alliance at this point, and Trini becomes the butt of all of your jokes. She'll cross her arms in that way where she wants to appear as though she'd mad at you but you'll push the remaining half of your sugar dusted donut across the table towards her and she narrows her eyes at you. There's a grin on your face as you wink at her after she mumbles some comment about not being able to resist – a comment that would be inaudible if you weren't so attuned to her, if everything about Trini wasn't so _loud_. The conversation will shift though when Jason and Billy walk into the shop and join their table. Billy talks about some new and exciting piece of technology that none of the rest of you have the capacity to understand, but not even Zack can find a snide remark to cut in with. Especially not when the remaining three of you didn't know devotion could be visible and that its pouring out of Jason's eyes while he looks at Billy as the other boy gestures animatedly with his hands. The tips of Jason's mouth are turned up in a small smile that symbolises more happiness than you can ever imagine, let alone remember. You wonder if Jason struggles too, if he wishes he could turn down the volume just as she does. Maybe it's an unfortunate mistake then, or maybe its fate that Trini's eyes catch yours at that moment. Billy's story becomes background noise and you swears sees a softness in Trini that you thought you'd imagined back in Angel Grove. You're sure that if you blink you'll miss it – and so you don't. You don't blink, and so in that split second you catch some emotion behind comprehension swirling in the other girl's eyes. Eyes so deep and so brown that you thought it should be easy to get lost in them, but you've come to learn that just for poetry books and that other girl so rarely allows anyone past the surface. Trini's looked away by then, and the group is quiet for a moment each preoccupied with their phones, but you're still looking at Trini and all you can think of is how everything about her is so _loud._

The mornings after the nights before prove to be the most difficult part for you. You're usually fixing yourself some breakfast when Trini traipses in, hair dishevelled wearing shorts that are barely and a brightly coloured oversized t-shirt. You feel like the t-shirts are the universe's idea of a metaphor, because the t-shirts _are_ Trini. To you, Trini is primary colours. Back in Angel Grove, you thought she was bright, but so complex that she'd be like a smudge on a page. But not this Trini. This Trini is primary colours – she's vibrant and bold and beautiful. She's so brave and you think that her heart would be golden coloured if you had to paint it. Today's t shirt is yellow and though you already know it's your favourite colour on her, your breath catches in your throat anyway. Trini stifles a yawn and throws a "morning Princess" your way before pouring herself some of the freshly brewed coffee that she knows you don't drink. The stranger from the night before usually follows her into the kitchen a couple of minutes later, only on this occasion she's not entirely a stranger. You recognise her from one of your classes and sends a polite but strained greeting in the girl's direction. You much prefer it when the girls are strangers, knowing you won't see them again – that Trini won't see them again. It bothers you most when they're a familiar face, when you know exactly what you'll be imagining should you ever cross paths again. You don't hate that you'll imagine it, you hate that it even happened. You're unsure when you began to feel this _affected_ by Trini, you're not even sure why. Or at least you like to pretend that the latter is true, because it scares you less than the idea of admitting that you want to be one of Trini's strangers too.

You won't ever forget the first night you thought about what it would feel like to kiss Trini. (You don't think there's much about Trini that's forgettable period). But you remember sitting around the campfire with the rest of the other group when the other girl was being goaded by Zack into sharing a story about her first kiss. They'd all spilled embarrassing secrets about themselves at this point, so it wasn't a surprise that Trini was willing to tell you all about Tommy – the girl who took her first kiss and then proceeded to tell the rest of the school how unsatisfactory it was. Trini shrugs the story off as another example of why high school kids are shitty, but you find yourself hating a girl you've never met for hurting a girl you'll never have. You refuse to believe that Trini could be anything less than an excellent. You swear that even if her lips weren't perfectly formed and even if her jawline wasn't sharp enough to cut a man, kissing Trini would be spiritual because she's _Trini._ It's when it hits you all at once that you've just spent three hours thinking about your roommate's mouth that you realise everything feels louder than before – and you don't think it's ever been silent since then.

Trini's seen her guest out of the door within the next five minutes and she joins you on the couch, coffee in hand. That's usually the way it goes, if Trini doesn't have somewhere else to be (you always pray that she doesn't). It's easier then, and you don't feel as suffocated now that it's just the two of them. Everything still feels loud as the two of you groan to one another about your workload and Trini vows that today will be the say she starts the assignment that's due next month. You can't stop the snort that escapes in response knowing full well that your roommate is a "due tomorrow, do tomorrow" kind of girl, but you're happy to humour the idea regardless. Trini's loaded up the new season of Jane the Virgin by then and you're too invested in this show to poke fun at the other girl for liking it. The episode features a musical number and you turn to Trini to turn the volume down because it's a little too-

Loud. Yes, the word seems to trigger Trini's memory and she formulates some feeble apology about the noise last night. She stumbles over her words as she speaks and a fond smile involuntarily makes it onto your face. You love moments like these where despite all of the changes in Trini's lifestyle, the smaller girl could switch from something of a lothario to an incoherent mess within seconds. Trini notices your expression and reverts back to the faux-collected version of herself then, poking you in the side once, twice and then again until the laughter is spilling out of you without control and Trini's laughter is soon harmonising with yours and all of a sudden things are loud again.

You know you're lying to yourself then (you've known for a long time) – that when you say you'd like to be one of Trini's 'strangers'. It's become apparent that strangers would never be enough, but you're not sure that roommate is enough either. You know that a night could never, would never be enough in fact it scares you how much it _could_ be when even the warmth of Trini's forearm against yours is more deafening than anything you've ever known. You're just sitting on a couch, just you and Trini – neither of you are speaking, and its silent, but everything around you is so loud - oh it's _so_ loud but it won't ever be loud enough.


End file.
